Americans for the Arts

Tim Mikulski

When it comes to television culture in the second decade of the 2000s, it seems like we've reached new lows in what qualifies as entertainment. From The Bachelor to The Real Housewives of (insert city/state here), reality television that celebrates being rich, obnoxious, or both dominates what now passes as pop culture (but I'm not throwing stones as an avid fan of The Amazing Race and even—gulp—Survivor).

However, many American television viewers rallied around the little arts education show that could, Glee, this past season. Despite often-tepid writing, usually the heart of the show permeated through (more in the first half of the season), mixing with interesting musical numbers to create a new genre loved and adored by millions of past, present, and future theater/music/dance geeks, dweebs, and nerds.

But for those of you that have access to BBC America, the truly inspirational arts education show is the award-winning documentary series, The Choir. The British series follows choir director Gareth Malone as he attempts to build a program in a school that had never had one before. Malone walks viewers through the entire process from auditioning singers, to dealing with voice changes, and even a very painful second round of cuts a few weeks into the process.

The goal is to get the group good enough to perform in the World Choir Games. I won't ruin anything by telling the results, but if you Google around, you will find that he later added two more additions of the show after the initial show's 2007 airing.

Since the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring the week following the second Sunday of September as Arts in Education Week just a short while ago (the end of July), I feel like our sector has been speeding along trying to find quick ways to celebrate the occasion.

Although time was short, I suggested that educators might see this as a way to celebrate this new week for the first time around by starting a project with students that would end later in the fall. For example, a music educator may start writing a new school song to be performed at an assembly in October or November; a visual art educator may start working on a mural project that begins the planning stages next week; or, a dance educator begins a class’ first performance during the week.

No matter what you decide to do to celebrate, it doesn’t have to start and end all during next week.

In fact, some of the brilliant minds that participate in the #ArtsEd chat on Twitter every Thursday night, came up with the idea to have those engaged to pledge to support arts education in their community and vow to testify on behalf of their local programs at a school board meeting during Youth Arts Month in March 2011.

Tim Mikulski

The teachers and kids are back in school. Starbucks is selling Pumpkin Spice Lattes. The air in D.C. has cooled off for the first time since March.

Of course it’s time for another Arts Education Blog Salon.
Now in its third round, Americans for the Arts is proud to host yet another week of blogs dedicated to the topic of arts education.

This time, we have a wide range of participants – from newbies who haven’t blogged before to veterans who have been with us since the first one. Altogether, we have 17 brilliant minds ready to share information and spark debate.

Our Scheduled Blog Roster:

John Abodeely, National  Partnerships Program Manager, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Allen Bell, Arts Education Research & Information Program Director, South Arts
Donna Collins, Executive Director, Ohio Alliance for Arts Education
Sarah Collins, Master’s Degree Candidate, University of Oregon
Kim Dabbs, Executive Director, Michigan Youth Arts
Rachel Evans, Assistant Professor, Kean University
Mimi Flaherty Willis, Senior Director of Education, Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts
Zack Hayhurst, Master’s Degree Candidate, American University
Tim Mikulski, Arts Education Program Manager, Americans for the Arts
Heather Noonan, Vice President for Advocacy, League of American Orchestras
Jim Palmarini, Director of Educational Policy, Educational Theatre Association
Laura Reeder, Arts Education Instructor/Graduate Assistant, Syracuse University
Victoria Saunders, Arts Education Consultant, Victoria J. Saunders Consulting
Barry Shauck, President, National Art Education Association
Mark Slavkin, Vice President for Education, Music Center (Los Angeles County)
Lynn Tuttle, Director of Arts Education & Comprehensive Curriculum, Arizona Dept. of Education
Joan Weber, Educator/Arts Education Consultant, Creativity & Associates

Tim Mikulski

As I began writing this blog post, which is serving as both the regular weekly “Arts Canvas” piece for Arts Watch and as one of 29 blog entries that will make up our Arts in Education Week Blog Salon on ARTSBlog, I have my office door closed and my portable iPod speaker is quietly playing the music of an independent singer/songwriter who happens to be from my hometown in Southern New Jersey. It’s one of those days when I need help focusing and Matt Duke’s music is helping.

And that got me thinking about the influence that music has had on my life over the past 30 years. It just so happens that I just moved out of my twenties over the past weekend and I’m in a reflective mood.

If you don’t mind the indulgence, I’d like to leave the serious arts education policy discussions up to the very capable (and excellent) other arts education bloggers for the week and explore those thoughts.

Now… back to my original point.

All I have to do is hear the first few notes or words of a song on my iPod, on the radio, or even as part of the soundtrack of a movie, and I can be instantly transported back to a certain day or short period of time in my life. I’m sure it is the same for most of you.

Tim Mikulski

On behalf of Americans for the Arts, I would like to thank all of our readers for stopping by to celebrate Arts in Education Week by reading all the posts of our fantastic bloggers throughout the week. Having organized two of these events now, I can say that the content is just getting better and better.

Here is just a sample of all of the topics covered by our intrepid bloggers this time around: national standards; research; technology & pedagogy; collaboration; assessment; innovation; advocacy; school districts/leadership; and reform.

But to put things into the complete perspective, I copied and pasted all of the blog posts into a word cloud website and came up with the words that were used the most in all of the posts (and unlike Wordle, Tagxedo even lets you pick the shape of your cloud).

The results showed that the words most often used in the posts were arts, education, school, programs, learning, students, teachers, and assessment.

To view the entire cloud, visit http://bit.ly/blogcloud.

However, our job isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

Tim Mikulski

As my third Arts Education Blog Salon comes to a conclusion, I wanted to first thank you for stopping by and (hopefully) reading all 31 posts over the past week.

The good news is that all of the posts will remain on the site and you can view them all at any time via this link - blog.artsusa.org/tag/march-2011-salon. You can also search our blog by topic or by other tags listed at the bottom of each post. And, if you are ever interested in blogging yourself, just send me an email.

I also want to thank all of the intrepid bloggers from the week: Victoria Plettner-Saunders, Ken Busby, Kristy Callaway, Alyx Kellington, Lynne Kingsley, Rob Schultz, Deb Vaughn, Allen Bell, Kim Dabbs, Rachel Evans, Kathi R. Levin, Joan Weber, Marete Wester, Richard Kessler, Merryl Goldberg, Clayton Lord, and Ben Burdick.

Each of the authors (among them a few staff members of Americans for the Arts, members of our Arts Education Council, Twitter friends, meeting presenters, and members of Americans for the Arts) wrote great pieces that rarely overlapped, but when they did, they complimented each other.

Considering my usual guidance is, "Write on anything related to arts education that you feel needs to be addressed - in under 650 words," I think they do a wonderful job.  

Tim Robbins

In 1976, when I was 17 years old, I received a check for 50 dollars from the National Endowment for the Arts.

I was a member of a touring theater company that performed free shows in low-income neighborhoods throughout New York City. We rehearsed for five weeks and performed for eight so my per hour income was paltry if not pathetic but I remember a great sense of pride when I cashed that check.

I was being paid by my government for entertaining people. I was proud to live in a country where that could happen. It also gave me great confidence in my talent. I continued to pursue this profession.

Within ten years the investment by my government of fifty dollars in 1976 was returning hundreds of thousands of dollars back to them in taxes.

Within the next decade the government received an even sweeter bounty on their fifty-dollar investment. And I was proud to pay these taxes. As I have been proud to invest back into the arts with The Actors' Gang, a 30-year-old organization that provides free educational programs to public school children and at risk teens and offers affordable and accessible theatrical and musical events to the citizens of Los Angeles.   

Tim Mikulski

I have now successfully attended four Americans for the Arts Annual Conventions (Philadelphia, Seattle, Baltimore, and San Diego) as a member of the staff.

In my previous two roles, I worked with the dedicated members of the State Arts Action Network while in the Government and Public Affairs Department and I managed the Arts Education Network under the Local Arts Advancement Department.

While in those positions, I was happy to attend conventions as a way to get to the know our members beyond email addresses and phone numbers, but it was through Twitter that I was able to network with my new arts education colleagues from across the country before I even met them.

It's amazing what kind of relationships you can build 140 characters at a time.

Tim Mikulski

For those of you who were able to attend our local arts education advocacy session at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention, you know all about the work of the San Diego Alliance for Arts Education.

For those that couldn't make it to San Diego a few weeks ago, the Alliance was created as part of a statewide effort by the California Alliance for Arts Education to launch local advocacy groups.

Led by Americans for the Arts' Arts Education Council Chair Victoria Plettner-Saunders, the group has recently been attempting to restore funding to the San Diego Unified School District's (SDUSD) Visual and Performing Arts Department (VAPA). (You can read more about their efforts in an earlier post from ARTSblog or by purchasing our full slate of sessions on our Convention On-Demand site and viewing the local arts education advocacy session).

On June 21, all of their relationship-building and advocacy efforts led to a unanimous vote by the board of education that restored full funding to arts education programs for the 2011-2012 school year.

Josh Groban

Singer-songwriter Josh Groban was a strong supporter of the arts and arts education long before gaining the attention of the music industry in 1998. His initial foray into charitable causes has always included arts education, in addition to a number of other causes.

However, Groban also recognizes that access to quality arts education has been declining and he wants to do as much as he can to help students be exposed to, and trained in, music, theater, dance, and visual arts.

Yesterday he announced that he is refocusing his charitable efforts on arts education under a new name, the Find Your Light Foundation.

Seeking to make a difference in schools across America and around the world, the foundation will focus on providing instruments and funding for arts programs in schools.

Arizona Commission on the Arts, a long-time member of Americans for the Arts, has secured seven-time National Basketball Association all-star Grant Hill as a spokesman for their four-year public awareness campaign, The Choice is Art.

The campaign is intended to: advance the cultural conversation in Arizona; grow public understanding about the broad-spectrum benefits of arts programs, and increase arts participation in Arizona communities; and, fortify a privately-held arts endowment whose funds can be utilized in support of statewide arts programs.

The campaign began with a focus on access to arts education with Hill spreading the message in a video airing throughout the state.

In addition to being avid visual art collectors, Grant and his Grammy-nominated wife Tamia support arts education for their children, as well as all the children of Arizona:

After being part of the rare Virginia earthquake and preparing for Hurricane Irene this weekend, natural disasters are certainly on the minds of many of us here on the East Coast.

While there are a number of resources available when preparing for or facing an emergency situation from organizations like ArtsReady and CERF+, another group that helps collecting institutions wants to spread the word about their offerings as well.

Below is a press release from the American Institute for Conservation-Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) that we wanted to share with our blog readers:

"With the peak of hurricane season approaching, museums, historic sites, libraries, and archives in coastal regions will be at risk. The American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the national association of conservation professionals, is offering free emergency response assistance to cultural organizations. Please help make sure that staff members of collecting institutions know to contact AIC-CERT when a disaster—flooding, hurricane, earthquake, fire—has damaged collections.

•    Call AIC’s 24-hour assistance number at 202.661.8068 for advice by phone.

•    Call 202.661.8068 to arrange for a team to come to the site to complete damage assessments and help with salvage organization.

Although written unevenly and built into a money-making machine by FOX and it's production company over the past two years, Glee is at it's heart a love letter to the power of music, and more general, arts education.

During the recent summer hiatus, it was rumored that cartoon-like villain Sue Sylvester (played wonderfully by Jane Lynch) would be running for Congress throughout the show's third season. I even read that her platform was going to be anti-arts, and after last night's season premiere, that rumor was confirmed.

After viewing some early polling numbers, Sue realized that she couldn't just be for something (immigrant deportation), but needed to be against something in order to gain traction with potential voters. Since she spent the last three years trying to destroy the school's glee club, it dawned on her that she could be against public funding for the arts/arts education.

As she spouted off about spending money for what we all hold so dear, I couldn't help but chuckle at the satire, yet of course we all know that it's a reality -- particularly during a time when FEMA and even FAA funding can almost cause gridlock just a few blocks from where I sit here in D.C.

We know that the creators of the show are very much in favor of arts education and it will be interesting to see how they decide to paint Sue's campaign (or if it even carries on past last night's episode). I hope the writers continue to approach it with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks, showing how ridiculous her stance is, while continuing to back up our arguments for arts education (Matthew Morrison's Will rattled off a few stats at Sue during the episode) each week.